Lunt vs Lacerta White Light Wedge for Imaging

[David Smith]

Friday was a busy morning. Whilst taking my white light close ups with the Lacerta wedge I also grabbed my Lunt version and shot the same number of frames at the same focal length just a few minutes after shooting with the Lacerta wedge (07:52:20 for the Lacerta and 08:02:16 for the Lunt). Now I can't control the seeing but everything else was identical; same scope, barlow, continuum filter, camera. I modified the exposure slightly but other than than that, everything was the same. Same goes for the processing, the images below are straight out of AS!3. I placed the stabilisation anchor in the same spot on the images and stacked the same number of frames with the same settings. The image I posted in the set from the 12th was shot with the Lacerta based on a very quick assessment of the stacked and sharpened output.

So the first image is from the Lacerta and the second is from the Lunt. They have been stacked and then cropped in GIMP and exported as png files for posting here. No sharpening or stretching. To my eye there is actually very little between them and what difference there is could be attributed to changes in seeing. What do you think?

 

 

[xtreemchaos]

yes id say there on par with each othier, good images David.

[Davey-T]

Look pretty similar to me although I have found that with similar looking images one can sometimes be " processed " more before turning into a noisy mess 

Dave

[David Smith]

1 hour ago, Davey-T said:

Look pretty similar to me although I have found that with similar looking images one can sometimes be " processed " more before turning into a noisy mess 

Dave

Yep, I agree Dave. If I get chance I will apply the same processing to the Lunt frame as I did my final Lacerta frame and see how it comes out.

 

[Highburymark]

To me the Lunt looks a bit sharper David but high power white light is so dependant on rapidly changing seeing it's always difficult to make a meaningful comparison

[Highburymark]

Great shots by the way - so nice to have something to enjoy in white light

[Pete Presland]

Very interesting comparison between the two.

initially I thought the Lacerta had it, but then I wasn't so sure. After another look I think maybe the Lacerta does just have the edge, but then again maybe not....?

Either way a couple fine images! I have thought about "upgrading" if that the right word to a "better" one. The Baader cool version has a huge price on it, not sure the image improvement would justify that price .